Somewhere Along The Way
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: postep for Rage Elliot contemplates the situation he's in after the case is closed and he's sitting by himself in the crib.


He can only hear the sound of his breathing. His knuckles sting from punching the lockers in the crib; the blood is starting to dry, but he ignores it, his face hidden in the palms of his hands. Damn the unit, he thinks as he sits there. Damn the cases and everything else, too. He hates this feeling, but there isn't a thing he can do about it.

The case has gotten to him in more ways than he is willing to admit, and it hurts. He knows that he is starting to slowly lose control and he knows that he needs to stop before he does something that he'll regret later on. But he can't. Work is the only thing keeping him from shattering into pieces; the only thing that is keeping him from losing his mind. The unit is all he has. And he hates it.

The cases involving children are hitting harder now…now that when he goes home, his own aren't there for him to keep an eye on. No…his four are with their mother, and from the looks of things, it is with her that they will remain. For this, he blames only himself. He finds it a wonder that they even want anything to do with him.

He knows that in a few minutes, Olivia will probably suspect that he is still up here and come to try and make him go home. He'll give her a half-hearted answer if she does, and she'll give him a suspicious look before leaving, mollified, to whatever life she leads outside of their squad room. And he will remain where he is, unable to make himself move, because his greatest fear awaits him when he leaves: no one will be home when he turns the key in the front lock.

Maybe Rickett was right, Elliot muses as he finally forces himself to look up. Maybe I _am_ just like him.

No, argues a voice, and it is one that he doesn't recognize. You're not. You're a detective, and he's a predator. He's going to prison and you're staying where you are.

Slightly cheered by this thought, Elliot gives a half-hearted smile, looking at no one in particular, because no one else is there. And as he does this, he wonders when things began to take a turn for the worse, even though he already knows when. But he needs something to think about or he'll go stark-raving mad…though some think that he already has.

He wonders when he'll finally lose it. Listening to Rickett's rambling wasn't exactly a good idea, but he'd done it. And now he wonders when enough will be enough. He wonders when he'll have the nerve to walk out on the job he's held for so long. And he wonders if when he does leave, he'll have the never to go to her and ask for her forgiveness…for a reconciliation.

The thing that scares him the most is the fact that she has every right to tell him no. He wonders where he would be if she did, and at the same time muses that he has never actually had the time to think about it like this. Damn the mind gapes Rickett tried on us, he thinks, but it crosses his mind that they're working, and he wonders where he would be right now if not for her. Probably in the loony bin upstate, he muses ruefully, and it would probably be true.

His breathing has slowed considerably now, and he can hear noises drifting up from the squad room; the others have probably all returned and are biding their time before they decide to sacrifice someone to whatever fury still remains. But there is none. It disappeared along with the uniform look of the lockers, and Elliot looks at them and laughs out loud upon realizing that his own took the brunt of the abuse. It seems only fitting; the others did nothing to deserve his anger; he himself did, and that is why he sits here now, physically exhausted and emotionally drained.

Voices are beginning to drift up; he can hear Munch asking Olivia where her "wayward partner" has gotten off to, but no reply comes. And then there's Fin, saying that it's "none of their damn business where Elliot is," but he wants them to know, wants them to know that now he needs them more than ever, but he doesn't know how to _let_ them know. If there is one thing that Elliot knows for certain, it is that if he keeps going down this path, he will keep going until he inevitably eats his gun. It isn't something he wants to think about, especially since the unit's halfway convinced that he's going to go over the edge sooner or later.

And so he rises to his feet and pulls open his locker door, having remembered seeing a number of Band-Aids in there. He takes a breath and holds it, allowing his eyes to drift slowly towards the frame made of painted popsicle sticks, the one holding the mirror that set him off in the first place. And this time, it doesn't set him off, for the reflection he finds himself gazing at is no longer one he does not recognize. It is his own.

A/N: kind of late for a post-ep for Rage, I know, but this is what I get for drinking soda at my aunt's work and staying up until 7:30 in the morning. And as always, you know the drill, people, SVU isn't mine and neither are any of the characters (don't I wish, though).


End file.
